Judge Hanson will ‘blast’ his way through Iowa’s gay marriage controversy

Polk County District Court Judge Robert Hanson says he’s “elected to kick the door in” on the controversy surrounding his and the Iowa Supreme Court’s decisions to uphold marriage rights for same-sex couples in Iowa and the ensuing successful campaign to oust three of the state’s Supreme Court justices.

“I’m going to blast my way through it. There is no turning back for me,” Hanson said.

Social conservative groups including the Iowa Family Policy Center (now known as The Family Leader), the National Organization for Marriage, the American Family Association and Iowa for Freedom launched a major campaign in Iowa last year to remove through a retention vote three Iowa Supreme Court justices that participated in an unanimous decision finding a legislative ban on same-sex marriage to be a violation of the Iowa Constitution’s equal protection clause.

They were successful in doing so, and expectations are the remaining four justices that supported the unanimous decision in Varnum v. Brien will also face difficult retention votes in 2012 and 2016.

Hanson said he’s since accepted every invitation to talk to groups about the decision and other issues, even in the lead up to the 2010 retention election that found him on the ballot along with those three justices.

“I’m disappointed myself that a lot more of us don’t go out and talk to the public, introduce ourselves, explain who we are, make ourselves out to be human beings to those people that are going to stand in judgment of us at retention time,” Hanson said. “That’s what we can do.”

Iowa is often praised for its merit selection process in appointing judges, a system put in place in the 1960′s. Under that system, a 15-member judicial nominating commission composed of lawyers and non-lawyers recommend appointees to the governor based on quality, integrity and professional ability – rather than on political ability or connections.

The justices’ ouster marked the first time in the nearly 50-year history of the process that judges weren’t retained.

Hanson said that process showed “what happens when we take the high road” and “what staying quiet gets you as a judge: it gets you a ticket right off the bench.”

“People assume the worst about us right now,” Hanson said. “I don’t like that any better than anybody else does but that’s the truth. They accept this characterization of us as out of control, as arrogant people that are trying to hold society in the way that we think it ought to be and not giving them any say in it.”

Hanson suggested changing the way judges are retained from requiring a simple majority to a 60 percent or two-thirds vote in order to be removed, calling the current system “a crapshoot.” But he doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

“We are not politicians. We didn’t run for our positions. We don’t know how to defend ourselves in a political arena,” Hanson said. “And so we’ve got to learn how to do that. But part of it isn’t hard. Part of it is just going out and putting a face to the name.”

Hanson also said there’s an inclination to think attacks on the courts began with the Varnum decision. He said that was a catalyst, but noted the courts have been under attack for a long time. For example, he said in 2006 the Iowa Supreme Court issued an order director judges to do public outreach efforts.

“They weren’t under fire so much from the standpoint of attempts at retention elections to oust judges as it was characterized by efforts to gut the court system by robbing it of all of its financing,” Hanson said.

He also noted a recent bond to expand court space in Des Moines was soundly defeated, despite major overcrowding at current facilities. GOP presidential candidates have also gone after so-called activist judges that “violate the constitution,” Hanson said.

He believes the key to keeping the state’s system of fair and impartial courts in place is to get everything out in the open.

“The more we discuss it, the more we defuse the issue,” Hanson said. “The more people realize the fallacy, the folly of all this talk about reining in these judges and things of that nature.”

The comments were made at a series of panels held as part of an event called Defending Iowa’s Courts, held last week in Des Moines. About a dozen groups sponsored the event, including Lambda Legal, Justice not Politics, Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, One Iowa and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

The panelists discussed legislative attacks against Iowa’s courts following the Varnum v. Brien decision; how those attacks threaten judges’ ability to rule fairly and impartially; and how to engage communities to defend the state’s current court system.